My stress levels are still off the chart. No, there's no word on my ongoing situation. No, I can't ride on the Metro any more without thinking about it. Money continues to be a big problem.

Writing is stalled because, after eliminating one substantial occurrence in my current book (I just didn't think I could make it work and still leave the writing at the same quality as if I didn't try to do it to begin with) I'm at a standstill. I need to rethink the scene but there's too much going on at the moment.

I'm hoping this weekend will make a difference. I have a dentist appointment on Monday so I just said screw it and took Friday off as well; I have the saved credit time to do it. Four days of rest might do me some good.

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume (VP:DS) is a sadistic game.

A word about the combat system: VP:DS is a tactics-style game, but unlike most such games it allots you only four people on the battlefield. (Yes! Only four! As opposed to Disgaea, for example, at 10. FFTactics had only 6 and it got blasted for it). The game makes up for this by letting your characters group attack. Any battle will allow every unit of yours in range to join the attack, regardless of how many attacks they've already launches this round.

Coupled with this is meager movement speeds: 5 squares is rare, 4 is common, and three even more so. Skills exist to increase movement speed, but they're active-use, meaning they deplete the AP gauge which powers such abilities, and prevent the character from attacking or otherwise acting in that round.

There's also an I-Win button, quite literally: In a story-based battle the main character can power up one ally's stats by 1000% (not a typo!). The character then dies (a cutscene death!) at the end of the battle. This is a story mechanic and affects the ending of the game.

Now, all things considered, the battles are not difficult if one applies a little sense. Some enemies hit insanely powerfully, and can one-shot a mage or archer character, and every enemy is a threat from the back, where they have the chance to collect attack-chain-increasing orbs. Enemies also benefit from the join-any-attack mechanic as well, though it comes up much less for them than it does for the main characters.

But there are a couple of catches.

First, every story battle requires the collection of a certain amount of "sin", obtained by overkilling the holy hell out of mobs. It is not only possible but required to continue to pummel an enemy long past the point of death. To obtain 100% overkill, generally four characters have to attack and unleash their death moves in the battle. (There's some flexibility on this, but read on). Battles usually have a required sin level of about 50 per enemy minus a little. If you don't collect enough sin, you don't lose; the next battle merely features ludicrously powerful enemies you all but HAVE to hit the I-Win button on -- which automatically generates enough sin to pass a level, on use.

However, collecting more sin than is required leads to better post-battle rewards. at 200% required, the rewards often take the form of the best weapons or armor for the entire chapter, for example. To collect this much sin, however, requires that almost every enemy gets a 100% overkill. Which means positioning every character to attack one at a time -- which means one mob a round, leaving the others to bite you.

And one mistake -- a missed attack, a counter that hits too hard, simply overestimating the characters' ability to overkill -- means you've blown it. Of course, you can always hit the I-Win, which not only guarantees 100% overkills but also generates half the required sin for 200% right there... unless you want to see the no-sacrifices ending.

Yeaaah.

Now take a no-sacrifices, full-completion game, and add in a battle with the following conditions: There is an NPC on the other side of the map under constant assault by the boss mob of the map. He can survive for about five rounds depending on luck. There are two paths to him, both of which go around the outside of the map, and of the seven non-boss enemies, four are on one side and three are on the other. The NPC does not stop attacking the boss, and will eventually kill him without generating any sin. 200% sin on 8 enemies is 720.

Then, immediately after that battle, the game throws you into another one with no opportunity to save.

I love the challenge, but man, some days you feel like you've run a marathon just from playing a video game...